Head and Heart to Heart and Head
by Nightengale
Summary: Takes place in the two months between season 4 and season 5 when Wilson is on leave . The first night at home, once he is released from the hospital after the crash and his excursion into his own brain, House dreams of a spinning bus


The first night at home, once he is released from the hospital after the crash and his excursion into his own brain, House dreams of a spinning bus. Glass crashes, people circle with the bus like specs of white in a snow globe and House is an anchor through the madness. The predominant color in the dream is red, hardly difficult symbolism. It ends with light and Amber standing above him.

When House opens his eyes he feels he should have a talk with his subconscious about subtly. Why all the guessing games before and face smacking now?

It is 2:18 in the morning and he gets six digits in to calling Wilson before he realizes he can't. It was Wilson's now dead girlfriend in his dream, Wilson's now dead girlfriend on the bus. Something pangs in his chest suspiciously like guilt but could be more like fear.

He hangs up the phone.

_It's been one week since Amber died and everything is done. There was a surprisingly small number of family to call once Wilson got down to it; some aunts, uncles, one grandmother and some friends. Amber already had her funeral arrangements made in advance, cremation of course. Even after death she could take care of herself and all that was left was for Wilson to take care of Wilson._

He sits in their kitchen with their dishes, their table, their chairs. He stares at the wall and thinks maybe he doesn't know how to take care of himself yet, not without Amber.

They're working on a patient; recurring rash, slowed heart rate, and hallucinations of fish in the air so far. House makes a joke about sushi which no one laughs at.

Thirteen and Taub are fighting about a diagnosis, jockeying for the first test rights. House thinks their insistent voices are pitched just too high and are going to give him a migraine. He suddenly just wants to sit on Wilson's couch and rag on Cuddy.

His hand touches the door handle to his porch and he stops. Thankfully he doesn't get as far as opening it and drawing his team's attention before he remembers there is no one in Wilson's office.

_Amber's charts are spread out on the circular table in the kitchen. They must be copies of the originals because Cuddy didn't say anything about needing them back or about Princeton General. It's a good thing too because he's ripped them apart, laid each page side by side, written in the margins, crumpled edges, left tear stains._

He tells himself there has to have been an error; someone has to have missed something. This can't just be random, be an accident, this can't be something like fate. Someone has to be at fault, someone has to be to blame and she wouldn't have been on that bus if not for House.

"It has to be you, House," he mutters to himself. "Your fault."  
_  
But House is the one who saw the flu medicine; House was the one who kept searching for the mystery patient even after they found him; House is the one who took extreme measures, stopped his heart, and risked his life when Wilson asked him to._

Wilson wants to blame him so much.

House wonders if maybe there were more symptoms he didn't see. Did he see the crash before it came with the driver? Did he see someone else twitch or cough; was there something more that could have prepared him for this? Did he miss something? He knows he didn't but that doesn't stop his mind going through it again.

The dreams only aid and abet him, not stopping with the first or the second or when he stops counting. The bus changes though and the faces fade, all but one.

Amber lies on her side beside him on the floor of the bus, face to face. They're all alone in the empty bus together, trapped in between. They don't look hurt in this gray space but they are.

Amber says, "He didn't just lose me, he lost you too."

House doesn't gasp or cry or jump as he opens his eyes. He looks at the phone and all he can see is Wilson's number. He doesn't call.

_Wilson decides to pack up Amber's things._

When ever he looks in the closet all he can see is her clothes. He can't figure out what to wear him self because he keeps seeing the skirt she wore out to dinner or the shirt he tore the button off of that one time. Her shoes are still lined up next to his and he has to stop himself from touching them. He won't make her things into a shrine even if part of him wants to.

She would have called him stupid for trying to make her shoes holy.

'That should have made me laugh,' he thinks.

He puts her clothes in boxes; pants with skirts and socks with shirts. He throws out her underwear because he can barely stand to touch them even that much. It gets harder when he reaches things they got together, things they both used, things like sheets and books and umbrellas. He doesn't know what to keep and what to get rid of. Then he realizes everything reminds him of Amber. The apartment was hers to start with and his whole life has turned into a grave yard of items of Amber.

House can't see Wilson's office from his. From the vantage point of his desk he can only see the wall across from his door and into the room to his right where his team works. Even the far end of those windows don't give him a view of the door reading 'Dr. James Wilson.' But he knows it's there.

It's been almost a month now, maybe just over a month, five weeks maybe or three and a half; the point is House wants Wilson back. He wants his friend back, his Wilson.

It was Amber that died not Wilson. His office should not be empty and there should not be this hole in House's life right now. Wilson should be there for him to steal chips from, watch whatever game is on with, give him insight into his cases without trying; Wilson shouldn't be kept away from him by that thing called grief. It isn't fair to House.

The small self analytical part of his brain comments on how pathetic it is that he can't seem to handle just one month without Wilson.

_Wilson is in the grocery store. He has to buy food, he has to eat, he has to try and live life like a normal person._

He's carrying a basket, chicken and a box of rice so far, when he realizes he's been standing in the same place for over a minute. He is in the fruit section staring down at some pineapples and crying. Tears are slowly leaking down his face and Wilson doesn't even know when they started.

He scrubs his hand over his face quickly. It's strange because Amber didn't even like pineapples and neither did he. Then Wilson remembers House likes pineapple. He turns and walks to the cash register at the front, not getting anything else.

House spends more time in coma guy's room than before.

He tries out Grand Theft Auto even though he'd sworn it wasn't worth the time when one owns a motorcycle. He gets a bit too much satisfaction out of running over hookers. He thinks this would be an awesome game to play with Wilson; first one to knock over ten guys buys the first round at the bar.

The first drink he thinks of is a cosmopolitan.

House smashes the A key down with his thumb. Pink is an idiotic color for a drink anyway.

_Wilson can't stop thinking. What if he hadn't been on call? Then House would have called him, he would have been on the bus, and he would have died. But then he thinks more and he wouldn't have had the flu medicine. So, if he'd been home, if he'd picked up House, if he'd been on the bus, he would have been hurt but he would have lived. All three of them would be alive._

But then he thinks again. If he'd gone to pick up House maybe they wouldn't have even gotten on the bus, maybe they would have gotten another round more than one jack and one Cosmo. Maybe they would have lingered an hour more even, before Wilson forced _House to admit defeat. Then none of them would have been on the bus._

Or maybe Amber did go to pick up House and House actually paid for his drinks, been decent for once. Maybe they would have missed that bus. Maybe Amber would have gotten House to her car. If only House had a little bit of selflessness in him. Maybe if House had waited two seconds longer or if he'd left when Amber first got there or if he hadn't gone out at all or if House hadn't had anyone to call in the first place…

"Your fault… it has to be… your fault." Wilson puts his hands over his eyes.

It's all 'or or or or maybe maybe maybe' in his head.

It was an accident. He can't explain it or blame it on House. He can't fix it or go back and change it. But it's still there, everything he didn't see, it's all still there.

If Wilson wants to be alone then House is going to just let him be. What would House say to him anyway? 'At least you didn't marry this one, not a widower!' House doesn't do grief and Wilson does, so best to keep it separate.

"Are you going to go see him?" Cameron asks him.

"Have you called him?" Thirteen asks him.

"He might need help with Amber's stuff," Chase offers him.

Foreman just gives him a look and says nothing.

House cuts off Kutner and Taub before they can add to the pile of comments on what House 'should' be doing.

"Call him," Cuddy says.

He doesn't feel guilty, this wasn't his fault, and if Wilson needs him, he'll call. That's all there is to it. House does not think about how this is the longest time the two of them have ever not talked.

_Wilson breaks a dish and it makes him cry. He can't find a specific picture of Amber he wants and ends up spending 45 minutes searching for it until he finds it in his wallet. He looks up new apartments online then slams his computer shut when it feels like a betrayal._

He has to do something, something has to give. It's only been a month and a half and he still feels like he's drowning. He knows the stages of mourning, knows it takes time but he doesn't know if he has it in him.

Wilson looks at the phone, picks it up a few times, even dials once. He wants to ask _House to come over, be with him, help him figure out how to restart his life. But he's not sure if he wants House there, not sure if he could look at House and not see Amber too, not see they way House and Amber fought but got along, not see the games, the manipulation._

He's even less sure if House would actually come if he asked.

Wilson doesn't know if he can keep House in his life without feeling like this every time he sees him. It's sorrow and it's anger and it's depression but it's also fear.

House can't sleep or maybe he doesn't want to. He knows he doesn't feel guilt, he knows it; he isn't guilty but the bus comes back in all his dreams no matter what he knows.

In this dream he's driving the bus, headlights blurring out the road; the next dream he keeps hitting the ceiling then the floor in a never ending spin; next everything is red and Amber screams; then this dream has no sound at all but a replay of the night's events with clarity like memory.

Then Amber is walking the length of the bus toward him and no one else is there.

"You can't stay on this bus," she states and then leans over to whisper in his ear, "I've taken him with me, so you're alone."

House stares at the ceiling but her words are still there like a warning.

_Wilson can't stay here._

He knows location isn't the answer; he knows it's running away and maybe it's a coward's way out; he knows that new places aren't always better. If he leaves Princeton-Plainsboro then he leaves something at least. He leaves the room where she died; he leaves their apartment; he leaves the place where the bus crashed; he leaves House.

It has to be House. House has to be to blame even if he's not to blame. If Wilson gets House out of his life then maybe it will be okay. He's already lost enough.

'House just makes it worse for me, always makes it worse,' Wilson tells himself.

He decides. He's leaving the hospital, leaving House, moving on. If he starts everything new then maybe this feeling in his chest will stop, just ease a little. Maybe his life will be better.

Wilson dreams that night of the ICU. It feels even whiter than real life, blank of all tactile qualities. Amber is lying dead on her bed, only she's not alone. House is laid out on the bed beside her's, twins in deathly white.

House stares at the space where Wilson had been standing. He can hear Wilson's quiet foot steps as he walks away down the hall with his last box in hand. There is nothing left in the office but a telephone on the bare desk, blank walls, and empty furniture. Not a trace of Wilson remains.

House thinks that maybe he should try to follow Wilson, to say something. 'Don't be an idiot!' or 'You love my middle-of-the-night phone calls!' or 'Who's going to give me all my epiphanies?' Maybe he should shout after him that House is better off without him anyway. Who needs a conscience?

But really that's all moot because it's all lies and House can't move regardless. He can't take his eyes off the empty space. Maybe if he stares long enough Wilson will materialize and fill the gap again. Maybe the stabbing pain inside him will really just be his imagination.

The only thing he really wants to say, to cry, keeps flowing in a loop, an endless stream in his head: 'Please, please, please, please! You can't leave me, you are my friend, my only friend; you can't leave me!'

House's hands start to shake and he walks out of Wilson's office.


End file.
